1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to status indicators for electronic devices and related indicating methods, and particularly to an LED (light emitting diode) indicator and a related method for indicating different statuses of electronic devices.
2. Prior Art
LEDs have been widely employed as status indicators of electronic devices for a long time. In the early years, a main application of an LED indicator on an electronic device was to indicate the power status of the electronic device. That is, the LED indicator emits light when the electronic device is powered on, and goes out when the electronic device is powered off.
With today's advances in technologies, electronic devices have been equipped with more working statuses, such as “normal,” “idle,” “lock” and the like, each for the purpose of satisfying users, saving power and/or protecting the electronic devices. To indicate so many working statuses and make the users aware of the current working status, a plurality of LED indicators, each respectively indicating a special working status, are employed. For example, China patent no. 02270351.9, which is entitled “Televisions having status-indicators”, discloses a technology that indicates multi-working statuses of a television using a plurality of LED indicators.
The indicating task of an electronic device is satisfactorily fulfilled by using a plurality of LED indicators. However, with the increase in the number of LEDs, the manufacturing cost of the electronic device is incrementally increased too.
Thus there is a need for a status indicator indicating multi-working statuses of an electronic device with a single LED, which not only successfully fulfills the indicator function but also effectively reduces the manufacturing cost of the electronic device.